AuthorTopic: 1 year later....still glad u went to law school? (Read 134710 times)

There is only one reason why you should attend law school at this juncture in your life: You already have financial security, and you're looking to understand how society works from a lawyer's perspective.

Otherwise, the fact that you're even asking the question leads me to believe you don't REALLY want to do it - If you did, no matter your age, your situation, or your income, you'd never ask strangers on a message board what they thought, or even further, take what they had to say seriously.

Lastly, if you're wondering if you'll do well, you probably won't. Those that do well have a California-sized brush fire blazing under their butts to excel or die trying, and even then, many people are VERY unhappy with their performance in law school.

Boiled down, depending on how much attending law school will cost you, you're making quite a gamble on something you don't sound gung-ho about. But when the first day of class rolls around, man, you better be ready to go to war, and give up at least a solid year and a half of your life establishing your academic worth to employers while your social life is decimated.

I am a foreign doctor (originally from Iraq) who was laid off several years back by my employer who sponsored my J-1 visa (I won the lottery fortunately that is how I got the residency) I remember it very well how hard it was to find employment - any type of employment - I guess it was because of my language skills that I got a job to survive during those hard years (I was employed by a contractor in need of translation services from Dari to English - Dari is the name given to classical Persian poetry and court language, as well as to Persian dialects spoken in Afghanistan. Various dialects of Dari are also spoken by a few people in Iran and by many in Pakistan.

hitch, you succeeded (you got the residency and became a specialist doctor) because you had it in you, so to speak - not because you're lucky and won the lottery. I assure you had the full range of abilities, capabilities, and capacities to become a professional in your field (medicine). You had the courage to come to this country alone, you survived the visa process, you kept your job despite constant difficulties and stress you were under and, I would assume, you did all this being a family man (having a wife and possibly kids). I would safely say the Dari part (your having foreign language abilities) and the fact that it helped you to keep the head above water for some time is the least important in the big picture of things, man! TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT HIM (the man you see every morning in the mirror) and you'll understand I'm not talking in vain!

When this threads asks was is "one still glad?," it assumes that the question can be answered from emotion or experience or reason, but in reality none suffice, since the question can only be answered from one's will.

When a person's will is strong, there surroundings bend to it, even feelings of being glad or sad hold no sway ovr their choice.

[...]

In essence, this question is asking what type of will do you have -- a strong one, a herd-like one, a special one, a bright one, a dark one? I have observed each answer is nonsensical, but a small few address the root of the question.

I'm not entering into a philosophical discussion here, Mina, but I'd like to point out this: the Will is source of suffering, since willing never brings contentment, but only further desire. People are, in fact, condemned to the endless pursuit of impossible desires: we blow out a soap-bubble as long and as large as possible, although we well know that it will burst.

We are all in front of a portal inscribed "The Moment." An eternity lies behind us, and an eternity yet again lies before us; an unending chain of events in which we are inextricably involved. Like the punishment of Sisyphus in the Greek myth, we are condemned to a terrible repetition of events for all eternity. This lack of purpose or ending -- a form of meaninglessness is nothing else but the "endless desiring" mentioned above. We are, obviously, to put an emphasis on "the moment" -- on our present action and will -- and whatever follows is tied to this for all eternity.

Logged

If you see the wonder of a fairy taleYou can take the future even if you fail

Interesting avatar as well! The question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg?

It points out the futility of identifying the first case of a circular cause and consequence. The predestination paradox (also called either a causal loop or a causality loop) is a paradox of time travel that is often used as a convention in science fiction. It exists when a time traveller is caught in a loop of events that "predestines" him/her to travel back in time. Because of the possibility of influencing the past while time travelling, one way of explaining why history does not change is by saying that whatever has happened was meant to happen. A time traveller attempting to alter the past in this model, intentionally or not, would only be fulfilling his role in creating history as we know it, not changing it. The predestination paradox is in some ways the opposite of the grandfather paradox, the famous example of the traveller killing his own grandfather before his parent is conceived, thereby precluding his own travel to the past by canceling his own existence.

A dual example of a predestination paradox is depicted in the classic Ancient Greek play 'Oedipus'. Laius hears a prophecy that his son will kill him. Fearing the prophecy, Laius pierces Oedipus' feet and leaves him out to die, but a herdsman finds him and takes him away from Thebes. Oedipus, not knowing he was adopted, leaves home in fear of the same prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Laius, meanwhile, ventures out to find a solution to the Sphinx's riddle. As prophesied, Oedipus crossed paths with Laius and this leads to a fight where Oedipus slays Laius. Oedipus then defeats the Sphinx by solving a mysterious riddle to become king. He marries the widow queen Jocasta not knowing she is his mother.

A typical example of a predestination paradox (used in The Twilight Zone episode "No Time Like the Past") is as follows: A man travels back in time to discover the cause of a famous fire. While in the building where the fire started, he accidentally knocks over a kerosene lantern and causes a fire, the same fire that would inspire him, years later, to travel back in time.

A variation on the predestination paradoxes which involves information, rather than objects, traveling through time is similar to the self-fulfilling prophecy: A man receives information about his own future, telling him that he will die from a heart attack. He resolves to get fit so as to avoid that fate, but in doing so overexerts himself, causing him to suffer the heart attack that kills him. In both examples, causality is turned on its head, as the flanking events are both causes and effects of each other, and this is where the paradox lies. In the second example, the person would not have traveled back in time but for the fire that he or she caused by traveling back in time. Similarly, in the third example, the man would not have overexerted himself but for the future information he receives. In most examples of the predestination paradox, the person travels back in time and ends up fulfilling their role in an event that has already occurred. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the person is fulfilling their role in an event that has yet to occur, and it is usually information that travels in time (for example, in the form of a prophecy) rather than a person. In either situation, the attempts to avert the course of past or future history both fail.

Ah, cause and effect! We have perfected images of how things become what they are -- sperm, egg, embryo, etc -- but we have not gotten past an image, or behind it. For example, we describe a cause as producing and effect, but this is a crude duality.

Cause and effect probably never occurs -- in reality there stands before us a continuum of which we isolate a couple of pieces... we do not see cause, we infer it. So, if we chop up the endless continuum of the world into manageable pieces for our digestion, let us not imagine that the menu we prepare for ourselves is the only, or even the tastiest, one. Yet the hubris of science insists that it is!

We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we are able to live -- with the postulation of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of faith, nobody could now manage to live!

Ah, cause and effect! We have perfected images of how things become what they are -- sperm, egg, embryo, etc -- but we have not gotten past an image, or behind it. For example, we describe a cause as producing and effect, but this is a crude duality.

Cause and effect probably never occurs -- in reality there stands before us a continuum of which we isolate a couple of pieces... we do not see cause, we infer it. So, if we chop up the endless continuum of the world into manageable pieces for our digestion, let us not imagine that the menu we prepare for ourselves is the only, or even the tastiest, one. Yet the hubris of science insists that it is!

We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we are able to live -- with the postulation of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of faith, nobody could now manage to live!

Well, libo, internists are sometimes referred to as the "doctor's doctor," because they are often called upon to act as consultants to other physicians to help solve puzzling diagnostic problems. While the name "internal medicine" may lead one to believe that internists only treat "internal" problems, this is not the case. Doctors of internal medicine treat the whole person, not just internal organs.

Although Internists may act as primary care physicians, they are not "family physicians," "family practitioners," or "general practitioners" (whose training in certain countries includes the medical care of children, and may include surgery, obstetrics and pediatrics). General Internists practice medicine from a primary care perspective but they can treat and manage many ailments and are usually the most adept at treating a broad range of diseases affecting adults.

Internists can choose to focus their practice on general internal medicine, or may take additional training to "subspecialize" in one of 13 areas of internal medicine, generally organized by organ system. Cardiologists, for example, are doctors of internal medicine who subspecialize in diseases of the heart. The training an internist receives to subspecialize in a particular medical area is both broad and deep. Subspecialty training (often called a "fellowship") usually requires an additional 1-3 years beyond the standard 3-year general internal medicine residency (residencies come after a student has graduated from medical school). The following are the subspecialties recognized by the American Board of Internal Medicine:

Cardiology

Endocrinology

Gastroenterology

Hematology

Infectious diseases

Medical oncology

Nephrology

Pulmonology

Rheumatology

In 2000, the first large-scale effort to collect data on medical students since 1977 took place. A study was conducted to determine changes in MBTI profiles of medical students over time, differences between the profiles of men and women and the effects of the increased number of women in medical school, possible associations between type and career choices, and possible type differences of graduates selecting primary care and specialties. The study included data from 3,987 medical students and found that the type distribution of physicians had remained relatively stable since then 1950s. The study found that women are more likely to choose primary care specialties than men, which also holds true for those with preferences for introversion and feeling. While feeling types choose Family Medicine more often than other thinking types, males, extraverted, and thinking types choose surgical specialties more than women, introverted, and feeling types. The study concluded that personality typing is still useful for understanding how some aspects of personality relate to medical specialty choice.

All of the personality types are found in medicine, which led Isabel Briggs Myers to conclude that not only does medicine have appeal for all of the types, but it also gains strengths from all of the types. There are increasingly fewer SPs than other psychological types in the medical field. Since the 1950s, the percentage of SPs in the medical field has dropped from approximately 22% to 10%, which may reflect the increasing institutionalization and formalization of the profession. Psychological typing can be especially useful for medical students because a physician who changes specialties is more likely to move into a specialty in which the doctor’s type is more prevalent than in his or her initial choice.

The following are some generalizations about specialties and MBTI types:

Internal medicine and neurology attract more IN types.

Surgical specialties attract ES types.

General and orthopedic surgery and obstetrics/gynecology attract sensing types (which are highly interested in high tech and straightforward approaches).

Practices in which objectivity and toughness are required in caring for patients attract thinking types. Surgery is one of these fields as it involves little continuity with patients over time and its decision making process favors thinking.

Practices in which nurturing and compassion are required in caring for patients attract feeling types.

I'm not entering into a philosophical discussion here, Mina, but I'd like to point out this: the Will is source of suffering, since willing never brings contentment, but only further desire. People are, in fact, condemned to the endless pursuit of impossible desires: we blow out a soap-bubble as long and as large as possible, although we well know that it will burst.

We are all in front of a portal inscribed "The Moment." An eternity lies behind us, and an eternity yet again lies before us; an unending chain of events in which we are inextricably involved. Like the punishment of Sisyphus in the Greek myth, we are condemned to a terrible repetition of events for all eternity. This lack of purpose or ending -- a form of meaninglessness is nothing else but the "endless desiring" mentioned above. We are, obviously, to put an emphasis on "the moment" -- on our present action and will -- and whatever follows is tied to this for all eternity.

It's no surprise that Coca-cola was first introduced as a medicine. Its strange taste seems to provide no particular satisfaction. It is not directly pleasing, however, it is as such, as transcending any use–value, like water, beer or wine, which definitely do quench our thirst, that Coke functions as the direct embodiment of "IT", the pure surplue of enjoyment over standard satisfactions. It is the mysterious and elusive X we are all after in our compulsive consumption. The unexpected result of this is not that, since Coke doesn't satisfy any concrete need we drink it only as supplement, after some other drink has satisfied our substantial need — it is rather this very superfluous character that makes our thirst for Coke all the more insatiable. Coke has the paradoxical quality that the more you drink it, the more you get thirsty. So, when the slogan for Coke was "Coke is it!", we should see in it some ambuigity — it's "it" precisely insofar as it's never IT, precisely insofar as every consumption opens up the desire for more. The paradox is thus that Coke is not an ordinary commodity, but a commodity whose very peculiar use–value itself is already a direct embodiment of the auratic, ineffable surplus. This process is brought to its conclusion in the case of caffeine–free diet Coke. We drink a drink for two reasons: for its nutritional value and for its taste. In the case of caffeine–free diet Coke, its nutritional value is suspended and the caffeine as the key ingredient of its taste is also taken away. All that remains is pure semblance, an artificial promise of a substance which never materialized. Is it not that in the case of caffeine–free diet Coke that we almost literally drink nothing in the guise of something?

What I am referring to, of course, is Nietzsche's opposition between "wanting nothing", in the sense of "I do not want anything," and the nihilistic stance of actively wanting the Nothingness itself. Following Nietzsche, Lacan emphasized how, in anorexia, the subject doesn't simply not eat anything, he rather actively wants to eat the Nothingness itself. The same goes for the famous patient who felt guilty of stealing, although he didn't effectively steal anything — what he did steal was, again, Nothingness itself. Along the same lines, in the case of caffeine–free diet Coke, we drink Nothingness itself, the pure semblance of a property. This example makes palpable the link between three notions: that of Marxist surplus-value, that of Lacan's objet petit a as surplus enjoyment, a concept which Lacan elaborated with direct reference to Marxist surplus value, and the paradox of the superego, long ago perceived by Freud. The more profit you have, the more you want, the more you drink Coke, the more you are thirsty, the more you obey the superego command, the more you are guilty. In all three cases, the logic of balanced exchange is disturbed in favor of an excessive logic of "the more you give the more you owe", or the "more you possess what you are longing for, the more you are missing and thus the greater your craving", or the consumerist version, "the more you buy the more you must spend". This paradox is the very opposite of the paradox of love where, as Juliet put it to Romeo, "the more I give, the more I have."

So what then is superego, what is this superego injunction which is replacing more and more the old symbolic law of prohibition? Superego is the reversal of the permissive "You May!" into the prescriptive "You Must!", the point in which permitted enjoyment turns into ordained enjoyment. We all know the formula of Kant's unconditional imperative: "Du canst, denn du sollst" (You can do your duty, because you must do it) Superego turns this around into "You must, because you can." Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of Viagra, the potency pill that promises to restore the capacity of male erection in a purely biochemical way, by-passing all problems of psychological inhibitions and so on. Now Viagra takes care of the erection, there is no excuse, you can enjoy sex so you should enjoy it, otherwise you are guilty. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the New Age wisdom of recovering the spontaneity of your true self seems to offer a way out of this superego predicament. However, what do we get effectively? Is this attitude not secretly sustained by the superego imperative? You must do your duty of achieving full self–realization and self–fulfillment because you can. This is the reason why we feel, a kind of terrorist pressure beneath the compliant tolerance of New Age preachers. They seem to preach peace and letting go and so on but there is an implicit terrorist dimension in it.

So what is superego? The external opposition between pleasure and duty is precisely overcome in the superego. It can be overcome in two opposite ways. On one hand, we have the paradox of the extremely oppressive, so–called totalitarian post–traditional power which goes further than the traditional authoritarian power. It does not only tell you "Do your duty, I don't care if you like it or not." It tells you not only "You must obey my orders and do your duty" but "You must do it with pleasure. You must enjoy it." It is not enough for the subjects to obey their leader, they must actively love him. This passage from traditional authoritarian power to modern totalitarianism can be precisely rendered through superego in a joke. Let's say that you are a small child and one Sunday afternoon you have to do the boring duty of visiting your old senile grandmother . If you have a good old–fashioned authoritarian father, what will he tell you? "I don't care how you feel, just go there and behave properly. Do your duty." A modern permissive totalitarian father will tell you something else: "You know how much your grandmother would love to see you. But do go and visit her only if you really want to." Now every idiot knows the catch. Beneath the appearance of this free choice there is an even more oppressive order. You seem to have a choice, but there is no choice, because the order is not only you must visit your grandmother, you must even enjoy it. If you don't believe me, just try to say "I have a choice, I will not do it." I promise your father will say "What did your grandmother ever do to you? Don't you know how she loves you? How could you do this to her?" That's superego. On the other hand, we have the opposite paradox of the pleasure itself whose pursuit turns into duty. In a permissive society, subjects experience the need to have a good time, to really enjoy themselves, as a kind of duty, and consequently feel guilty for failing to be happy. The concept of the superego designates precisely this mysterious overlapping in which the command to enjoy overlaps with the duty to enjoy yourself. Maybe we can in this way distinguish the totalitarian from the liberal–permissive superego. In both cases, the message is "You may enjoy, but because you may, you must".